Tuesday, April 26, 2016

DQ Royal Rocky Road Brownie Blizzard Review

[Only for 2016, replaced January 2017]
I just got back from DQ and am I full of rocky road goodness. After a messy run-in with the Royal Oreo Blizzard, I had decided to hold off judgement on the royal line up until I tried...

I'll be honest, I'm a little surprised that I've never seen a rocky road blizzard before. It's such a classic combination, one I adored for many years, and now I finally get to try it in blizzard form. I liked it from the first bite and I'm pretty sure it grew in to love with each successive bite.

starting to dig down : brownie on the left, peanut on the right

The first thing that stood out was actually the peanuts. They are plentiful and continued throughout my blizzard. (some might argue they should be almonds, but I'm ok with them going with fresh peanuts)

The next thing that hits you is the strong cocoa flavor. The description says cocoa fudge blended in, but there are also a million tiny brownie crumbs scattered throughout my blizzard and the overall flavor is delightful. A lot of the time I go with a blizzard for my snack specifically because I want a strong flavor (that's easy to scoop).

Speaking of strong flavors, the marshmallow "core" (or center) is not to be trifled with. It actually reminds me a lot of the strong, sweet, ooey gooey marshmallow swirl you find in an excellent pint of H-D rocky road ice cream. I did try a spoonful by itself, but it's not for the faint of heart. It's not crazy strong, but I think most people would prefer it with a fair amount of softserve on the spoon. (does that sound like a slight does it? It's not meant too).

For all my technical minded friends out there, no, it's not a true solid core. This isn't the same noticeable center you find in B&J's core flavors. That's the core on my spoon in the picture, so you can see taht the marshmallow is pretty liquid-y (though not really sticky). It's not like eating a marshmallow from a bag, it doesn't have that poof factor. It's hard to tell where it starts and stops.

I wanted to knock them a little for it not being a true core, but after several bites I really didn't care anymore. I adored the strong flavor here. It's this delightful combo of cocoa, peanuts, and marshmallow and it totally made my breaktime today. Well done DQ, well done.

Verdict? ExcellentBuy Again? YES!

Note: As with all blizzard reviews, your experience may vary greatly from store to store

@Gabe: If they just meant they were keeping it cold for half an hour, that's fine. If it's going to spend several hours in there and get completely solid, I can't say I would recommend that.

We used to go to DQ for lunch and my boss would bring back an extra hot fudge sundae that didn't always get eaten, so it would go in the freezer. Once or twice I tried eating it later in the afternoon and it wasn't terrible, but nothing I would personally recommend (keeping in mind I am finicky about textures and a firm believer that texture is what makes the blizzard special).

Maybe a few others can chime in if they freeze their blizzards as well.

It's not the same after freezing but if you are going to do it, at least make sure to let it sit for at least 15-20 minutes after taking it out of the freezer to get closer to the original consistency.

You have to like salty ice cream to like this blizzard. I don't like salt in my ice cream. I've never understood how people can like it. So for me, this blizzard was awful. I do think that they must have gone way overboard on the salt somehow. It was overpowering. I can eat a Peanut Buster Parfait. My wife loves peanuts in ice cream and she thought the salt was a bit much. Sorry, just my taste. But beware if you don't care for salt.

I work at a DQ, and yes they most definitely can! We do that all the time; in fact, our blizzard cakes are just frozen blizzards. We even have several customers who buy their blizzards in bulk about once a month and freeze them for later. The only products i wouldn't recommend doing this with are the ones that contain the hot fudge or hot caramel, as they dont stay quite as good.